


Star Trek Discovery codas seasons 1-2

by allofmystudensrunaway



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angst and Feels, Episode: s01e02 Battle at the Binary Stars, F/M, M/M, Pining, Sweet Sorrow, coda 01x02, coda 02x14
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-01-23 13:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18550987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofmystudensrunaway/pseuds/allofmystudensrunaway
Summary: this is my first coda for star trek disco..there will be others as i rewatch the first two seasons. First disco fanfic ever actually so be kind.





	1. Coda:01x01: Make not your thoughts your prisons.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cw for mental anguish. Michael in prison, before joining discovery.

Michael sat very still hands flat on her thighs and tried to meditate, it was almost impossible to concentrate. The dull light of Proxima Centurii tinted her cell rust red, blood everywhere she looked; On her hands, on her face and in her eyes when she caught her reflected gaze. Every twelve hours the prison rotated away from the small star and then she slept. If you could call the tangle of nightmares sleep, it certainly wasn’t restful.  
Despair is insidious, a snake that winds it’s way into the mind and chokes out all other thought. At first she had tried to pull herself from it’s grasp. She had done the work they asked of her, mixed with the other prisoners tried to make her atonement mean something. It didn’t work. The others knew what she was, the guards didn’t bother to protect her and now this was her life. Her Life, watching an insignificant star slip past the window and waiting for the night terrors to come and claim her. “I deserve this” She reminded herself, it wasn’t martyrdom or histrionics, it was simply the truth. She had caused death, so many deaths. Friends she loved had died because of her actions, if anything her punishment was too merciful. Starfleet had no idea what to do with her. She was a mutineer, the first ever. The powers that be couldn’t make her walk the plank, even so they had buried her anyway. So she let herself be choked by the snake, suffocated in her own guilt and over and over her mind showed her Philippa’s face as T’kuvma thrust his blade through her heart. Michael dwelled on that image, held it before her eyes and burned it into her soul.  
The sun was slipping away as the station turned into night, Michael lay down. She lay straight arms and legs rigid, not wanting to sleep but knowing she couldn’t prevent it. The lights snapped off and left her alone in the darkness with only the cold stars for company.  
"Where fear walked, anger was its companion." Sarek whispered in her ear. She blinked back tears, night was the only time she allowed herself to cry. It was dangerous during the long hours of daylight, when a guard might see and take exception to her grief.  
“I do not need Surak’s Analects now.” She told her imagined Father.  
“I think you tell yourself falsehoods to comfort yourself. There is no logic in that” Michael turned over and curled herself up tightly. Sarek had said that to her when she was nothing more than a frightened child.  
"To each joy its celebration; to each sorrow, its observance." Her father towered over her, Vulcan face implacable, even so his voice hinted at compassion. Michael realised she was dreaming, she knew if she looked around she was see her Mother Amanda.  
“I remember this day.” It was the day she had first gone to the learning centre, She recalled Spock reaching out for her hand as they walked to their parents shuttle.  
“Michael, my daughter you cannot exist in the past, you must live in the now”  
“How?” she begged. The lights in her call flashed on dragging her from her dream, she sat up blinking and confused. One of the Guards, Ensign Galus was stood inside her cell brandishing a phaser rifle.  
“You, Burnham get up you are being transferred to Tellun, pack your things.”

 

 

“ I


	2. Coda 01×02; He who wishes to fight must first count the cost.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i find the whole mirror universe thing fascinating have done ever since i was a kid, what makes a person do the things they do. What is the difference between that person and this? so here a little character study of Captain Georgiou. CW for major character death (canon)

Philippa wanted the Klingon dead at her feet, she could admit that to herself. She wanted to tear the life from his body as he had ripped so many of her people apart. As he had torn and shredded her heart, she wanted to rend his into pieces. The image of the Europa with her hull cloven in two and wreathed in self sacrificial fire, was one that would never leave her. Yes she wanted him dead, “but we can’t always get what we want.” she whispered to herself. Instead she would rob T’kuvma of what he desired, she would drag his vaunted honour from him and shame him in front of his people; no martyrdom, no unification. A small lesson on one who would make war for wars sake and she, Philippa Georgiou would be the one to teach it.  
Fists clenched she took a deep breath and turned to face her depleted bridge crew. Shell-shocked eyes observed her narrowly, exhaustion writ large on every well known face. She would do this for them all, including Michael. T’kuvma’s war had broken Michael as badly as the shattered ships now floating dead in space. Philippa let her gaze rest on Michael for a moment, how had she not known how broken her first officer was? The Vulcans had much to answer for.  
“We will stop this, here and now” She promised her crew, “Come on Burnham.”  
T’kuvma knew what they were planning, she could see it in his eyes as he struck the first blow. As she dodged it and retaliated a quote from Sun Tzu flashed up in her mind ‘Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.’ With horror she realised he would make her kill him if necessary. T’kuvma had no intention of being a prisoner. He wrenched her arm and spun her round dislocating her shoulder. Philippa refused to scream, she would not grant him the satisfaction. She caught a glimpse of Michael, blood running down her face. In her hand a phaser waved uncertainly looking for a clean shot. The uncomprehending terror on her face drove Philippa on, she spun gambling on T’kuvma losing his grip, it was the wrong move.  
Fire ran through her as the blade pierced her lung, she coughed and tasted blood. T’kuvma grinned at her in victory. But he didn’t see what Philippa saw. Michael was a child again, watching a Klingon kill her mother, but this time she had a phaser. The Klingons body jerked his hands lost their grip and Philippa hit the deck. It was too late, far too late. “All is lost” Her last thought formed and frayed away into nothingness.


	3. Coda 1x03 : sometimes when you are lost, you are found.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> redemption is a tricky thing.

Michael leaned against the wall and stared out at the stars. Tilly had tried to persuade her to go to the mess hall, but she couldn’t face that. Not yet anyway, it was enough to spend her work hours ignoring the side-long looks and whispered comments of her ship-mates without throwing social interaction into the equation. Besides there were people here she cared for, people who had been hurt because of her actions. She wondered how she could ever look them in the eye again.  
“you don’t care if everybody hates you” Tilly had said in all innocence, on that ill-fated shuttle ride to the Glen. It wasn’t true of course, she did care and the way Saru had reacted to her had cut her deeply.   
“I deserve it” She reminded herself, before she could fall into self pity. She had a feeling he would not approve of her taking the Captain’s offer.  
It was a painful redemption this, right now she felt like Dante taking his first steps in purgatory and seeing nothing but the wild beasts ahead.. What was Lorca then? Was he Virgil come to guide her steps or something else. There was a darkness in her new captain that frightened her and yet there was something compelling there too. Gabriel burned with purpose, she had seen it in his eyes. He would get the job done, no matter what it cost him and he expected the same of his crew. She remembered what Stamets had told her;  
“If Lorca wants you to be here, then your intentions are less than moot.” Had Lorca brought her here on purpose? The thought worried her, nagged at her resolution. She dismissed her doubts, Stamets spoke with the bitterness of a peace loving man required to go to war. No starfleet captain would go to such lengths to acquire one mutineer. The shuttle accident that dumped her in Discovery’s path was just luck and time would tell if it was the good or bad kind.  
“Black alert” the computer intoned, another test of the spore drive. The lights dimmed and Michael folded her arms against the sudden chill of the damp air. It was over as soon as it started, she wondered how far they had jumped this time and would the spore drive alone be enough to send the Klingons back to their own space? That was not a question she could answer. All she could do was help and maybe when all this was over and she was back in her cell some of the blood would have been washed away.  
The thought of returning to confinement rattled her a little, even in the few days she had been on board Discovery she had grown used to freedom again. It would hurt to be given up as lost. She turned away from the window and tapped her fingers on the table, considering. For now she was home or as close to it as she might ever get, an unlooked for happen-stance. She smiled to herself, she could not undo what had been done, but she could make some memories to lighten the long years of nothingness that waited in the future.  
“Computer, where is Cadet Sylvia Tilly.”


	4. Coda 1x04: My course is set for an uncharted sea.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael considers her actions and Lorcas (grr lorca)

“More importantly, take good care of those in your care” those last few words of Philippa’s testament rang dully in Michael’s ears. She stared down at down at her captain’s last gift. It’s ancient surface scarred, scorched and battered from the battle of the binary stars. An archaic instrument with it’s roots in a time before sensors, when plotting a course and holding to it was a matter of life and death because straying too far could strand you in the realm of monsters.  
She wanted to touch it, to reach out and feel the cold metal, to let her fingers rest where her Captain’s had and for a moment be that person again; the one Georgiou had thought she was. Michael dared not, she had no right, no claim. She had left the true course far behind her and dragged the whole of starfleet into the Kraken’s jaws.  
For a while she had persuaded herself that this was a second chance, a way to absolve herself or at least to steer a new course, now she wasn’t sure. She was starting to think they were all lost. Landry was gone and the look she had seen in Lorca’s eyes was not the reaction of a grieving Captain, but of a soldier immured to death; his fanaticism was beginning to scare her.  
Worse she had failed to protect an innocent, Ripper’s scream as it was hooked up to the spore drive would haunt her for a long time. A sentient creature tortured for gain, was this what her actions had done to Starfleet? Would they have to sacrifice everything, become monsters to defeat the Klingons and give everything up for the dreadful algebra of survival?   
“You will fit in perfectly with Captain Lorca” Michael remembered Saru’s words, at the time she had been confused, now however she could see his point. Lorca used people, ruthlessly as she had used Saru as she had caused Ripper to be used. Lorca had told her she was a tool to her face and she had not caught the meaning behind his words, now she understood. Sudden cold raced up her spine raising goose bumps on her arms, she reached out and shut the case. No, she did not deserve Philippa’s gift. In these treacherous waters a new course would be needed, the old certainties would have to go. Her only compass was herself, her only anchor her crew, she would find a way to chart a course to peace and lay the uneasy dead to rest.


	5. Coda 1x05; Down the rabbit hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stamets and his spore drive..i just love him.

Paul poked at his lunch, he had thought he was hungry, but right now the burger and fries he had been craving not ten minutes before looked unappealing. He stabbed a fry with his fork and forced it down, it sat in his throat like a stone. He groaned and dropped his cultery, he was eating alone. He had called Hugh in the hope he would join him , Hugh had made up some excuse about still being needed in sick bay and cut him off mid-sentence. Paul knew in that instant that Hugh was majorly pissed at him, not unusual in it self, Paul knew he could be a shitty human being, something he was trying to work on. This time though, he had no idea what to do, okay scratch that he knew what he had to do, he just didn’t want to do it. Disobeying a direct order was not an easily over looked matter.   
He already knew deep in his heart that the creature dubbed Ripper by the sadly deceased Commander Landry and magnus boletus-comedenti by science was in trouble. The Tardigrade’s screams had begun to haunt his dreams. He had attempted to rationalise his actions, they needed the beast without it the spore drive was little more than aesthetically pleasing scrap and the spore garden? Just an ecological curiosity. What did that make him? deluded maybe, a man chasing an impossible dream? probably. If someone had told him six months ago, that he would be having ethical concerns over a Tardigrade, he would have called them mad. ‘well we are all mad now’. He pushed his plate away and went to look at Ripper.  
Ripper was still curled up and looking like a large raisin. When Ripper was awake he/she/ it had reminded Paul of a large friendly dog, like the mastiff his family had owned as a child. Terrifying to look at, but mostly after snacks and a place to sleep. ‘it killed Landry’ he reminded himself. Even that didn’t help, he was fully prepared to accept it was self defence, Hell Odin would have likely murdered anyone who threatened his family. Could he expect any less from a sentient creature that had been tortured. Paul shook his head and glanced over at Sylvia Tilly who was monitoring the things faint life signs.  
“Is Ripper still with us?”  
“Uh yes sir” Tilly fidgeted with a padd picking it up and putting it down. “You’re not really going to force him to wake up are you sir?”The horror on her young face spoke volumes, Paul let a sigh hiss through his teeth. He walked over to his work station, primed the spore drive and picked up the hypospray full of tardigrade DNA, weighing it in his hand thoughtfully.  
“No, no I’m not.” he walked over to the spore cube and paused outside. “All of you out now.”  
“Lieutenant Stamets are we able to jump?” Sarus voice boomed over the com, urgent Paul heard the edge of panic there. They were in danger then, Hugh was in danger, no choices left.  
“All of you out” he shouted and watched them scuttle away, he sealed the doors took a breath and got inside the cube.  
“Yes we are able to jump commander” he pressed the hypospray to his neck and braced himself as the interface rods slid beneath his skin, it was purest agony; And at the same time the universe opened up in his head.  
The pain vanished, he could see all of it. The shimmering, divine chaos of it all, constantly changing, growing, moving and more than that. The stars, planets and the way every living thing was enmeshed it this most delicate and yet strongest of webs. He could see where he needed to be and understood too that the distance was nothing a mere half step. Creation beckoned and Paul launched himself into it.  
He woke laughing with the joy of it.


	6. Star trek discovery coda 02×14: I say goodnight till it be morrow

‘One hundred and twenty four days,’ Ash reminded himself and here he was; Another planet, another mission. His days were starting to blend together, he stared out of the window at the lush green globe of Betazed as it spun gently beneath his ship. “I should have gone with you, Michael” he was alone, he could risk saying her name out loud. He had nothing to remember her by, not even a picture. She was just gone, no worse than that she and his shipmates, his friends all erased ; As far as Starfleet was concerned they had never existed. They and Discovery had been wiped from the universe, history would not remember them. No one would ever know the sacrifice made to keep the dream of the federation alive.   
Ash closed his eyes “It was necessary” how many times had he told himself that? He knew it was true and yet it didn’t help, the ache inside his soul refused to go away. The part of him that was Volk wanted to howl in mourning and pound his fists against the walls until they bled. Michael, his love, his enemy and his friend she owned a part of his fractured soul. Now that piece of himself was missing swept away in the time stream, “I will never see you again” another mantra repeated in the privacy of his head, to convince himself that it was truly over, hope can be a terrible thing.  
L’rell had known, he recalled her strong hands gripping his shoulders as he watched Discovery fly into an unknown future “She is brave my love, she will earn a place in Sto’vo’kor. You will see her there.” He hadn’t answered her, there were no words that could describe the weight settling on his shoulders, ‘I will never see you again’. He summoned her face in his minds eye, every delicate line and those deep dark brown eyes. Eyes that had looked through him and read the words incised on his heart, the truths he had tried to hide even from himself. Michael, he owed her so much. She had made him see he could be redeemed and for her he had redeemed himself.  
His cheeks were wet, Ash scrubbed his face with his uniforms sleeve. It wouldn’t do to be seen crying, section 31 was not tolerant of tears. His solitary time was nearly done, in a moment the surface team would be checking in and he would have to return to the bustle of the bridge. A soft chime interrupted his train of thought, he sighed. “Come in”  
“message for you sir” A bolian lieutenant took a hesitant step into Ash’s quarters and proffered a pad. Ash took it, orders probably, always more orders. The sender ID made him frown.  
“Dismissed” he growled. A single line of text, two words only.  
“Signal received.” The weight on his heart lifted a little, the light became a little brighter, Ash smiled and shook his head. She was alive, his friends were alive.  
“Goodnight Michael.”


	7. Coda 02x14#2 Angel of Enterprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a short Eulogy for Admiral Katrina Cornwall.

Angel of Enterprise.

She was a rumor nothing more, a footstep on a decking plate, a reflected face glimpsed in a console. But she had always been there, if the ship was dying and when all hope was lost there she was. Standing at the Captains shoulder or whispering in the chief engineers ear. Sometimes an ensign working the night shift deep inside a jeffries tube would feel a hand on their shoulder and turn to find the space behind them empty.

Kirk saw her the day he sent the Enterprise crashing towards Genesis. Harriman saw her too, when the writhing nexus ribbon ripped a hole in his ship’s hull. Ship after ship, designation after designation they all saw her, a dark haired severe woman in an archaic starfleet admiral’s uniform. Wreathed in blue flame, smiling an impossible thing in a universe of impossible things. Never acknowledged, but bringing hope even at the end of things.

“we are starfleet, we will endure”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a short headcanon

Tilly plumped herself down on the sofa and handed Michael a bag of freshly made popcorn. “You eat it” she explained when her friend gave her a perplexed look.  
“What is it?”  
“Uhm it’s corn heated until it explodes.”Tilly watched Michael pop a piece in her mouth.  
“It doesn’t really taste of anything.” she took a sniff “Smells odd too.”  
“yeah I know, but it’s traditional. At least my Dad always made it for movie night.” Tilly shrugged and looked away, she was never entirely sure whether she had crossed the line between normal conversation and being annoying.  
“so what are we watching?” Michael asked shoving a handful of popcorn into her, mouth then frowning as she chewed.  
“Oh it’s this thing I loved when I was kid”  
“Okay” Tilly heard the scepticism in her friends voice and tried hard not to apologise or shrivel from embarrassment.  
“It’s called supernatural it’s an old tv series, its hard to explain.”  
“so whats it about?”  
“Uh, everything..just watch.”


End file.
